Making the Garden Grow
by Aerohead
Summary: ONESHOT A young Elphaba and a young Boq have a conversation about lettuce.


Title: Making the Garden Grow

Author: Aerohead

Email: in my profile

Website: In my profile

Pairing: none

Rating: PG

Disclaimer/Dedication: I own nothing. Sadly.

Warning: Nothing.

Genre: …is "cute" a genre?

Summary: A young Elphaba and a young Boq have a conversation about lettuce.

Author's Notes: Just trying to get back into the groove of writing by doing a quick little one-shot. This is musical-based, as Elphaba would already be in the Quadling Country by this time if it was based on the book. Plus, my last two one-shots were totally book-based, so why not do one totally musical-based? Of course, in the musical, Elphaba and Boq are the same age instead of one year a part, so yes, they are both about six.

Dark eyes glimmered. Their owner sat on a bench under a Quaxwood tree. Her dark hair was plaited into braided pigtails, and her spindly green arms were wrapped around her knees. She had just recently fallen off of – or, more aptly, had been pushed off of – one of the swings in the elementary school play yard, and had gone running home with a bruised knee.

She had never made it home; however, as it had started thundering, and she had remembered that her father would be out with her sister. So instead, the bespectacled girl had taken refuge under the large tree and had fallen asleep. She had just woken up, and was about to slip away and go home a little later than normal, when she was stopped by a young boy.

He didn't actually stop her; no, the small Munchkin boy didn't even look at her. Instead, she saw him and froze on the spot. She was about to sneak back into the tree and away from him, when he turned around and saw her.

They stood still for almost a full minute, just staring at each other. Finally, she struck up a nerve. "What are you doing?" she asked. Well, if she started a conversation, perhaps he wouldn't push her, and her knee wouldn't turn a darker shade of purple.

He held up a basket that was nearly twice as large as he was. "Picking lettuces." He ran a dirty hand through his dark hair. "You're in my class." He said.

"Am I?" she asked. She had never noticed him before, but all the short Munchkin boys looked the same to her.

He nodded. "You're…Elphie." He said. "I'm Boq."

She blinked once. "Oh." She started to edge toward the gate on the fence. "Why are you picking lettuces?"

He smiled. "'Cuz I wanna be a farmer someday." He looked her over without reservation. "Why are you green?" he asked, using the same curious voice she had used to talk about lettuce.

She crossed her arms. "'Cuz it's the color I am." She stated crossly.

He shrugged. "Oh."

"And it's Elphaba." She corrected.

"Sorry." He said, shrugging. He turned back to the lettuces. "Wanna help me?" he asked, not looking back to see if she was still there.

The small girl looked over her shoulder hesitantly, before moving over to him. "Alright." She said. She put her hands on her knees as she bent over to watch him.

He smiled at her; he was missing one of his front teeth, and she would have felt jealous if she wasn't three inches taller than him. "It's easy!" he said, waving a hand around energetically to get his point across. "All you have to do is bend over, grab the lettuce, and pull," he did so on a large lettuce head in front of him, "like that!" He put the head into the basket, before moving away. "Now you do it." He said.

Elphaba looked at the lettuce head in front of her. She bent down and wrapped her hands around it, before pulling up. With a little exerted force, the head came out of the ground, and a scared hedgehog hiding near the lettuce ran away. "Like that?" she asked, turning around to face Boq; she held the lettuce to her chest.

Boq inspected lettuce head closely, before offering Elphaba the basket. "Yeah, exactly like that!" he said. Elphaba smiled. The door to the house the garden belonged to opened, and a stout Munchkin woman came out, wiping her hands on her apron. She called over to the children. Boq turned to look at her, before looking back at Elphaba. "That's my mom. I have to go. I'll see you again?"

"Maybe," said Elphaba. She put the head of lettuce into the basket. The two children parted ways – Elphaba ran through the small gate, while Boq ran into the house.

The incident was forgotten as most incidents from childhood are. The Governor soon took Elphaba out of the small school to be tutored, after she came home with too many purple bruises marring her green skin. When Elphaba and Boq met again, they were much older, and the day long off in the recesses of memory had been forgotten by them both.


End file.
